The Morning After
by Phaze
Summary: Follow up to The Perfect Christmas Gift. Clark makes a Christmas wish that he may regret. Sometimes it’s not a wonderful life.


Follow up to The Perfect Christmas Gift. Clark makes a Christmas wish that he may regret. Sometimes it's not a wonderful life.  
  
Smallville: The Morning After  
  
Smallville, located in Lowell county Kansas, is not your usual small town. Some very odd and strange things have been going on there for more than twelve years. It all started with the unexpected meteor shower of 1989, and since then, it has been rumored that the strange green glowing rock fragments left behind have been giving this community's occupants some odd and Strange abilities. Some would call them, super powers. Yet all of this was old news at the Kent farm. It was two a.m. on an early Christmas morning and one resident was still awake.  
  
Clark Kent sat up in his bed staring at the walls. The previous twenty- four hours had been an ordeal for him, his family and friends. He could not put the past events out of his mind or relax enough to sleep. After being lost in a blizzard following a car crash, he thought surely he would be tired enough to fall asleep quickly, but instead, his mind was going over the day's events and how he had caused them.  
  
It was his idea to travel to Metropolis with an on coming snow storm, and it was he who talked Lex Luthor into driving back to Smallville in the heart of the blizzard. He felt he had messed everything up and caused only hardship for his family and friends. The worst being Lex, who laid in the next room in a pain-filled slumber. Everything he seemed to do only cause more hardship and misery for the people he cared about. Only a few months earlier he found out that he was not from Kansas. Perhaps, not even from Earth. (He was almost sure.) He learned it was just after the meteor shower that Jonathan and Martha Kent discovered him in a corn field near their home. They also discovered a tiny rocket ship near by. Clark quickly deduced that he had some how been brought to earth with the meteors. He could not escape the shame and feelings of responsibility knowing all the havoc these space fragments have caused. His friend Chloe had a whole wall of newspaper clippings of all the unusual things that had happened in Smallville since that day.  
  
"Lana." Clark whispered as he thought about it. She had been one of the first to be harmed by the disaster. She watched as a meteor landed on her parents and killed them instantly. Her sorrow had made the cover of Time Magazine that week. Forever burned into the countries collective consciousness were the tears and anguish of a little girl. There were also all the people changed and affected by the weird radiation and all the people they had hurt in turn. Lana as well as Clark's other friends like Chloe and Pete, even Whitney were all terrorized at least once each by one of these genetically changed persons. Lex, who had lost his hair in the original catastrophe still seemed mostly unaffected until now. He was hurt just for helping Clark with the purchase of a Christmas gift. An everyday event between two friends had almost killed the man who wanted to help, just because Clark was his friend. It was at such times that Clark hated himself the most.  
  
Narrowing his eyes, Clark used his x-ray vision and pared through the wall to the next bed room. He watched as Lex groaned in his sleep trying to get comfortable from his broken ribs and head injuries. If it were not for the pills the doctor gave him, Clark was sure that he would not be sleeping either.  
  
The guilt was cutting Clark like a knife. He stood, placed his hand on the wall and then leaned his head against the cool wall paper. "I'm sorry, Lex." He said softly. "I don't know how it happens, but everyone around me just seems to get hurt, just because I came here in the first place. It's all my fault the meteors followed me to Earth."  
  
Clark sat back on the bed and curled down into a fetal like position. "Some times." He spoke to himself. "I just wished I had never come to Smallville. Maybe everyone I loved would be allot better off." He closed his eyes and tried to keep himself from caring.  
  
Outside his window, the Christmas Star shown brightly through the drifting snow clouds of an early morning. It seemed as if God himself were listening to Clark's worries, and a star had confirmed it.  
  
  
  
Somewhere in the night, Clark must have fallen asleep. The next time he opened his eyes, the light of the morning sun was shining in his window. The room seemed colder and his bed, allot harder. Waking from a groggy sleep, Clark opened his eyes slowly to find that he was not in his bed, but sleeping on the floor. He sat up quickly and found that he was indeed in his room in the Kent's house, but all his things were gone, the windows were smashed out and the place looked like it had not been cleaned in years.  
  
In fact, not only were his things missing, but there seemed to be no evidence that this had ever been a bedroom, much less his. "What is going on here?" Clark thought to himself. Slowly he got up to his feet and began to walk around the room.  
  
"Mom and Dad." He ran out to the hall and over to where their room had been. The door was removed from it's hinges and laid against the bare walls. He saw all the markings and wear of where his parent's things had been for years, but no furniture or personal items remained.  
  
"Mom!" He yelled out to the hall, hoping someone would hear him. There was no reply. "Oh God." He rushed down the stairs and found the rest of the house in the same emptied state. It seemed that the Kent's no longer lived here, and it had been that way for some time.  
  
A panic came over him as he tried to collect his thoughts. "What is happening here?" He tried to sort it out in his head. " I remember everything that happened yesterday, and I remember going to bed. I checked in on Lex through the wall, and then I tried to fall asleep."  
  
"Lex." He used his x-ray vision to scan the whole house starting with the guest room, and found that much like his parents, Lex was also gone.  
  
What is going on here? He thought to himself. "This has to be some kind of dream or something." He determined. "I am having a terrible nightmare where everyone I know and Love is not here."  
  
"Wake up Clark." He said slapping himself in the face. "Ouch." I never hurt myself in a dream before. This is not a dream, Clark. Someone has done something to either your head or every thing else around you."  
  
He frantically thought through all the events of the last few days. "Maybe I hit my head in the crash, and I'm having some kind of a mind melt or something." He did a super speed sweep of the house and found nothing but discarded items and trash. He did however find some old baggy cloths in Jonathan's closet to wear including a pair of old work boots. It gave him a little comfort to recognize the items and to know that his parents, wherever they were at that moment, had been living in the house.  
  
"Think, Clark." He was kicking himself mentally. "Something major has happened with either my head or the world."  
  
His first act of business was to clear his head and sort things through. "I felt the cool under my stocking feet, and the wind on my face when I was running. I can feel pain and my emotions all seem to be in tact. So this is not a dream. My x-ray vision would have been able to see through an illusion. So that rules out a mirrors and lights show. Every thing here is real, but not what it should be."  
  
Clark leaned against the wall where the telephone had been, and lowered himself to the floor. "They're gone. Mom and Dad. Even Lex. There's no telling what has happen to everyone else." He thought to himself.  
  
After a few minutes of sulking he raised his head to the sky. "Dear God, I don't know what is happening here, but I need your help. Dad is the one who is able to sort these things out, but I don't know where he is. Please, Lord, I need your direction."  
  
It took him a few more minutes to pull himself together. When he was finished, he stood to his feet again and braced his face with a determined look. "Whatever has happen here," He thought. "I have to figure it out on my own. I need to find some answers, and I am not going to find them here." He walked out onto the front porch. "I do know that wherever I am, Mom and Dad are here too. The first clue to this puzzle is to find them."  
  
"Where do I begin?" He thought, and then he saw the mail box at the far end of the property line. "It Christmas day, so the mail carriers won't be coming, but maybe Mom left a forwarding address in the mail box. She is too much of a stickler on details for her not to."  
  
In a flash of color, he made his way over to the box and opened it. True to her nature, Martha did leave a forwarding address on a worn piece of paper taped to the bottom of the mail box. It took him a minute to make out the words from the remains of the frail note, but Clark recognized the address as an apartment over the old hardware store in town. It was there he knew his search for answers would begin.  
  
His run into Smallville was only stopped for a brief moment when he came across the "Welcome to Smallville" sign. It looked to be much older than the one he always saw, and there was no mention of the meteors like on the one he knew. Population was not the more than forty-five thousand he was familiar with, but even the twenty-five thousand had been crudely crossed off, and replaced with a painted nine thousand and a question mark.  
  
"Whatever has happen to me. It's happening to Smallville too." He reasoned out in his mind. With an even more determined resolve, he made it way into Smallville running at his top speed through the corn fields.  
  
  
  
It was a few minutes before he was in the center of the small town where he had lived for the past twelve years of his young life. The sight of what had become of his childhood home gave Clark paused to sigh with anguish. The thriving tiny metropolis was replaced by a weary, warn and run down town that resembled the old movies he watched as a kid. It was a ghost town compared to what it had been. Store fronts were empty and boarded up for what looked like a very long time. What few operational buildings that remained all needed paint jobs and major reconstruction work. Clark felt his heart sink at the sight. "Dear, God. What has happened to Smallville?" He asked in his mind.  
  
Smallville seemed to be a town holding on for dear life. The life, what little there was, seemed to have been strangled out of it years ago. First the Kent farm had gone bust, and now the city itself. Clark was afraid at what he might discover next, but he knew he had to press forward and solve this mystery.  
  
It took him a few seconds to locate the old hardware store in the unfamiliar landscape of the town. All the newer buildings were gone from where they had been the day before. Clark made his way over to the store front and saw that the old hardware store was still the old hardware store. Still, it was newer than some of the other businesses in the general area. He walked passed the locked doors and down the small alley that lead to the apartment's entrance on the second floor. This building was also in need of a paint job, but it was apparent that someone had been keeping up with the maintenance.  
  
Remembering the apartment number, Clark walked up the narrow steps of the hall and made his way to apartment number two. Approaching the door, he took a deep breath and braved himself for what he might find. Several ideas rushed through his head, but he did not want to think about the possibilities. He decided that his first job was to find Jonathan and Martha, and deal with whatever came next, standing at their side.  
  
He took a deep breath and knocked gently on the door.  
  
It was a few seconds before he heard footsteps approaching. Then with a tiny whisk of air, the door opened, and Jonathan Kent stood looking at him.  
  
"Merry Christmas young man." Jonathan said with a smile.  
  
It was all Clark could do not to grab his father in a bear hug. He wanted to yell "I'm Home!", But he could tell from Jonathan's eyes that he had no idea who Clark was.  
  
Clark heart sank again and he tried not to show it when he responded. "Merry Christmas, Sir."  
  
Jonathan's smile was bright, but there was a weariness behind his eyes, and he looked as if he might have put on a few pounds. He was Jonathan Kent, yet Clark knew he was very different. The spark, which was his Dad, was gone.  
  
"Can I help you with something?" Jonathan asked.  
  
"Ah." Clark realized that he was staring. "Do you recognize me?" He asked meekly.  
  
Jonathan took a hard look. "Can't say that I do. Should I know you?"  
  
The child in him wanted to scream out with tears, but Clark knew he had to say something before Jonathan slammed the door in his face. "I'm Clark." He blurted out his real name before realizing. "Clark Kent."  
  
"Kent?" Jonathan eyed him suspiciously. "How so? Martha and I are the only Kents in these parts."  
  
"I'm from Boston." Clark lied, trying to pull a story together. "My father is your third cousin from Ohio. He moved to Massachusetts before I was born." He tried to remember the Kent's family history and piece his explanation together.  
  
"Bobby's boy?" Jonathan's eyes lit up with a recognition. "Well I'll be dog gone. I heard little Bobby went and got married some years ago, but we lost contact a while before that. Seems I heard someone say he might have had a few kids. I guess It's only natural by now."  
  
Jonathan took his hand and pulled him into the apartment. "Well come on in, Clark. It's always a pleasure to meet family."  
  
"Same here, Mr. Kent." Clark had to force out his sir name over his usual 'Dad'.  
  
"Call me Jonathan." He put his arm over his shoulder and lead him to the kitchen table. "Cousin Jonathan if it makes you feel better."  
  
"Sure." Clark smiled over his anguish. "Cousin Jonathan."  
  
"Coffee?"  
  
"Do you have any hot chocolate?" Clark remembered his famous hot cocoa, and he needed a little reminder of his own Pa Kent.  
  
"Sure do." Jonathan brimmed. "I guess little Bobby told you about my special blends of chocolates."  
  
"Are you kidding," Clark started to make himself comfortable at the table and removed his coat. "Your chocolate receipts have made their way from coast to coast. I even heard mention of it up in Alberta."  
  
Jonathan laughed. "I see you have your father's way with a story."  
  
The words were like a knife to Clark's chest. Jonathan was buying the whole story, and the connection they shared as father and son was not there.  
  
"I guess." He agreed politely.  
  
"So, what brings you all the way out to Kansas, and on Christmas day no less?"  
  
"Oh." Clark thought quickly. "I was traveling through Metropolis on my way to Boston yesterday and got grounded by the snow storm. I couldn't get another flight until tomorrow, so my folks told me I should take a trip down to Smallville after the roads cleared and pay cousin Jonathan a visit."  
  
"I am so glad you did." Jonathan stood at the stove mixing the milk and chocolates. "So how is the family back east?"  
  
"Okay." Clark was surprised at how easily he could lie, but was sure he would not be able to keep all the facts straight. "I've been away at school in Washington state for most of the last few years, so I don't keep up with the details."  
  
Jonathan turned to him. "Why so far for school?"  
  
"Oh," He thought quickly again. "I got a scholarship at an advance school for gifted kids."  
  
"You don't say?" Jonathan was taking to the story like a fish to bait.  
  
"So." Clark stood up and walked over to the refrigerator that had a picture of Jonathan and Martha held up by a fruit magnet. "Where is Cousin Martha?"  
  
"Working, I'm afraid." Jonathan looked over his shoulder. "She's been working as a mid wife part time since we lost the farm a few years back. There are not allot of births around Smallville these days, but for some reason the Johnson's baby decided to be born on Christmas day."  
  
"Martha is working as a mid wife?"  
  
"Yeah, there's nothing your cousin Martha loves more than children." Jonathan told him.  
  
"You never had any of your own?" Clark walked up to him.  
  
"I'm afraid not." His face grew long for a moment. "We sure did try. Even with all those new drugs and everything, but after three miscarriages, we decided the strain was too hard on us to keep trying. Also, there was no telling what it was doing to her body. So we decided that it was not in the good Lord's plan for us to have children."  
  
"But it was!" Clark screamed in his head. "I'm your son!"  
  
"I'm sorry to hear that." Clark said hiding his real emotions.  
  
Jonathan stirred the pot silently for a few minutes. Clark could tell that he was deep in thought of the things that might have been.  
  
"So." He decided that his cover story was working well, and he would move forward with attempts to gather more information. "You mention that you lost your farm?" He hated bringing these terrible things to Jonathan's mind, but needed to get the full picture. "Do you mind if I ask how?"  
  
"The usual I guess." Jonathan explained. "The work got to be too much for just one man, and there wasn't enough money coming in to hire the farm hands we needed. So eventually it caught up with us, and Martha and I had to make a choice. Either keep my grandfather's dream floating in the red, or find a way to make money to put food on our table."  
  
"So you just walked away." Clark heard the slight anger in his own voice.  
  
"No Clark." Jonathan shot him a look of disgust. "It turns out the Luthor Corps has been buying up all the land around here for some time, so I finally said yes to his generous offer. Since I grew up here in Smallville and Martha didn't want to move back to the city, we couldn't bring ourselves to leave, so we bought the hardware store down stairs and run that now. It's not a farm, but allot of my training comes in handy."  
  
"I went to the farm before I came here." Clark explained. "There's nothing out there. What is Luthor Corps doing with the land?"  
  
"I couldn't tell you." He pulled the pot from the fire. "Since it's not my land anymore, I can't see as it's any of my affair. I've heard rumors about strip minding and allot other things that boarder on the science fiction, but like I said. I don't know and it's none of my business anymore."  
  
"Sorry." Clark hung his head for a second. "I didn't mean any disrespect." He thought of how in this new reality, his childhood home was lost forever. Not to mention his childhood. He had discovered allot in his time with Jonathan, but all he had accomplished was to prove that no one knew who Clark Kent was. He may never have even lived.  
  
He and Jonathan sat at the table and sipped on their hot chocolates for a while sharing stories. Clark actually used some of his own memories and shifted the locations from Smallville to the suburbs of Boston. A small part of him hoped that the stories would spark some recollections in his father's mind, but it was to no avail. As far as Jonathan knew, this young man was his third cousin, once removed.  
  
It was mid way through the morning when Clark reviewed the facts he already knew, in his head. If Luthor Corps was still in Smallville, then so would be the employees of the company and their families. "Chloe." He thought. If anyone could give him facts and information to solve this mystery, then his favorite little blond high school newspaper reporter could.  
  
Clark excused himself and said he had other matters to attend to. "I'm sorry I didn't get to meet Cousin Martha." He said.  
  
"Well come back tonight." Jonathan smiled. "You said your plane doesn't leave until tomorrow, so join me and Martha for Christmas dinner tonight, and you can drive back to the city after you eat"  
  
Clark's heart warmed at the thought of being with his parents again. "Okay." He smiled. "That sounds great. I'll be back in a few hours."  
  
Jonathan gave him a quick hug. "Merry Christmas little cousins."  
  
It took all his resolve to let go of his father, but he knew he had better stick to his plan and find his very own mystery breaker, Chloe Sullivan.  
  
  
  
The Sullivan family lived out by the Kent's farm in Clark's world, but here things were different, and he decided to play his hunch before running all the way back. Chloe was one of the best reporters Clark had ever read. He knew her heart was with the Smallville Ledger, so he chose to check at the Smallville Highschool's newspaper office before going any further.  
  
The high school was the same as Clark remembered. Perhaps a little less presentable with its pealing paint and slightly rotted wood frames. The additions built seven years earlier were now gone. He tried not to think of these differences. He took a deep breath and walked up to the doors.  
  
It was unlikely that the school would be open on Christmas day, but Clark knew how to get in. With a slight tug, the old warn doors snapped open, and he walked in.  
  
When he got to the press office, he saw that no one was there, but the lights had been turned on. Someone was around, but out at the moment. So he helped himself and entered the room. Not allot had changed. He could see the LC logo on the computers. Luthor Corps was still a presence here in Smallville, and they were determined to provide the best education to its employees children. The best that money could buy. They knew most of these children, who did not end up moving away, would be working for LC one day, it was only logical to train them well.  
  
Clark walked around the room, and then saw it. Chloe's 'Wall of Weird'. The whole wall had been plastered with pictures of all the strange and unusual event in Smallville since the meteor shower. He looked over the pictures and saw that these were not the ones he knew. These were story articles of failed businesses and the reported mass exits of important people in Smallville. There were stories of how LC was poisoning the environment. Pictures of dried out and dead farm lands. The pictorial was a big wall of life gone bad.  
  
It was then that a voice got him off guard. "Who are you, and how did you get in here?"  
  
Clark turned to see his good friend Chloe eyeing him suspiciously.  
  
"Chloe." He could not help smile.  
  
"Okay, you have two seconds to answer my first questions," She warned. "And a bonus round to tell me how you know my name?"  
  
"I've read your by lines." He thought of the answer quickly. "You look just like I had pictured you."  
  
"Yeah." She raised her eye brows. "That's like too weird for words, but it still leaves my original question hanging."  
  
"My name is Clark Kent. I am a distant cousin to the Kent family." The story had worked once, so he thought it best to stick with the format.  
  
"You mean the Kents over the hardware store."  
  
"Yes." Clark smiled. He was so relieved that with all the other changes, Chloe still seemed the same firecracker he knew. She had not changed one bit, or so he thought.  
  
"I was walking by, and thought I might check out the high school when I stumbled across your wall here."  
  
"Oh." She looked at it, with him. "My 'Wall of Woes'."  
  
"That's an interesting name." He gave her a quick grin.  
  
"Yeah, well it beats the 'Drapery of the Depressing'." She joked.  
  
She made her way over to one of the computers. "So Clark, if that is your real name. Why are you casing the high school on Christmas day? Are your folks thinking about moving to Smallville?"  
  
"Would that be such a bad thing?"  
  
"Well tell your Dad to get use to wearing a LC team jacket." She said as she sat before the monitor. "Because the Luthors are the only game left in Smallville."  
  
"I am rather surprise that the town is this small." Clark commented. "I thought that Lowell county was booming back in the late eighties."  
  
"The town is called Smallville, Clark." She said wryly while tapping away at the key board. "If there was a big boom like you said, then it would have been called Bigville."  
  
He could not help laugh at her sense of humor. Even after seeing them only a few hours ago, he missed the connections he had with his family and friends. Somehow, here it seemed he had reestablished that bond with her already.  
  
"Wasn't there a big meteor shower around here, back then?" He asked.  
  
"Meteor showers?" She turned her attention back to him. "What comic books have you been reading?"  
  
His face grew serious. This was an important piece of the puzzle. "There were no meteors?"  
  
"I wasn't in Smallville at the time, Clark. God knows I would have barely been about three years old, so I probably wouldn't remember any way." She told him. "Yet I'm sure if this town were hit, there would be some kind of folk lore by now."  
  
"But." His mind was reeling. "I could swear I remember reading about it."  
  
"Listen, Kent." She crossed her arms. "I'm sure it there was a rock storm. There would be some kind of scars left behind by the impacts, all over the landscape. And I've been all over the county between here and Metropolis, and I have never seen any."  
  
Clark felt his knees getting weak just as he took a seat next to Chloe.  
  
"Let me check something out." She said returning to her computer. "I seem to remember there being a story we read in science glass about a meteor shower passing Earth about that time."  
  
"Passing?" He repeated.  
  
"Yeah. My junior high class studied it after that Heaven's Gate thing a few years back." She said typing. "I guess they weren't ready to go, back then."  
  
Clark watched in silence as she surfed the world wide web for a few minutes. He was horrified at what this would mean to him.  
  
"Here it is." She announced. "Good old 'friends of Carl Sagan.' These people keep records on all this stuff."  
  
Clark read over her shoulder. "It seems there was a meteor shower that passed Earth back in October of eighty-nine. It missed us by only a hair."  
  
Clark sank back into his chair.  
  
"Oh here is what you must mean." She read. "Wow, seems that if it had not hit some kind of atmospheric disturbance, they had estimated it would have hit somewhere in the Midwest. Kansas seemed to be a prime target."  
  
"Gee, that would have been interesting." She smiled. "Just think of how fascinating a story that would have made. I bet the tourist traffic would have made Smallville a hearty vacation spot."  
  
She turned back to him. "Are you okay, Clark?"  
  
"Yeah." He said softly. How could he tell her that he was not really there. That he had never made it to Earth. "Does," He thought out loud for a moment. "Does it say where the meteors landed?" He asked.  
  
Chloe scrolled down the web page a little bit more. "Oh yeah. Here it is." She read to herself. Then she told him. "Seems it made a direct line right into the sun and burned up about six days later. In record time, they say."  
  
Clark face got white and all the blood seemed to rush from his head. "Oh God." He gasped under his breath.  
  
"Do you need a glass of water or something?" Chloe was worried about her new friend.  
  
The ramifications of what he had just learned were jumping around in his mind as a brick in an old tin can rolling down a hill. His thoughts were ablaze with confusion as he struggled to get a hold on himself and his emotions.  
  
"Clark." Chloe put her hand on his back when he slumped forward on the seat next to her. "Clark, are you okay? You're scaring me."  
  
"I'm all right." He tried to assure her through his anguish. "I'm just having an asthma attack or something." He lied. "I just need a minute to breathe."  
  
"I am going to go up the hall and get you a drink of water." She said making her way to the door.  
  
Clark sat hunched over and tried to catch his breath. His thoughts were a jumble of distress and sorrow. How could this have happened to him? He knew that he had lost the world of his birth when he was sent here. It was unclear where he came from, but it was not important to him. Earth and Smallville have always been his home. Now it appeared that he had lost this world too. Somehow, in this reality, his rocket ship never made it to Kansas or even the planet. Clark Kent, or whatever he was called back then, was lost. A burning ember in the molting lava of the sun.  
  
He heaved heavy breaths without stop for a few seconds. With the realization of his own death as a toddler, the life in his teen body seemed to be escaping him. Clark knew he had to get control of himself. He took several deep breaths and tried to relax his lungs. "Breath" He coaxed himself.  
  
By the time Chloe came back in with a can of soda, his lungs returned to their normal rhythms. She handed him the Pepsi. "Here, I couldn't find a cup for the water, so I had to get a soda out of the machine. This was all they had left."  
  
"Thank you." He gasped lightly taking the drink. "I am doing allot better."  
  
She sat with a worried look on her face.  
  
He took a few sips, and then smiled at her. "I'm okay now. Really." He insisted.  
  
"Good." She smiled sweetly brushing his face with her hand. "You had me worried."  
  
"Well, I fine, now."  
  
"It's strange." She pulled her hand away. "I know we just met, but I can't help shaking this strange feeling that I should know you already."  
  
He gave her one of his famous Kent charmed smiles.  
  
"Who are you, Clark Kent?" She wondered. She could not help admire his good looks, and found herself strangely attracted to him.  
  
"So." He swallowed hard. "You never did tell me what an attractive young lady like yourself is doing alone at high school on Christmas day."  
  
"Well." She sat back with a smile. "I heard that there might be some cute boys breaking in, asking questions about meteor storms, so I decided I had to take a shot and show up."  
  
Clark felt his own face blushing. Even here, it seemed he still had the charm to impress Chloe.  
  
"You seem to be breathing better." She remarked coyly.  
  
"Yeah, the soda seemed to help." He said with a smile. "Yet I still haven't gotten an un evasive answer from you, to my question."  
  
Her face got heavy for a second and then she forced a smile. "Hey, I'm Chloe Sullivan, super kid reporter for her high school paper. My folks were both working, so I had nothing to do. I decided to catch up on some work here."  
  
"Well, what about your friends?" Clark asked. "Don't you have any friends to hang out with?"  
  
Her eyes drifted downwards and she seemed deep in thought for a moment. "No." She said softly. "I've buried myself so deep in my work, that what few friends I had left, since I came to Smallville, have all kinda given up on me."  
  
"What do you mean, friends you had left?" Clark spoke softly.  
  
"Well, I had this really good friend when I first moved to town," She paused for a moment. "But he's gone now."  
  
"Does he have a name?"  
  
"Pete." She said with what he thought were watery eyes.  
  
"Pete." Clark smiled to himself. Even without him there, the two of them had found each other and became friends. "So what happened to Pete?"  
  
She looked up at him as a tear rolled down her face. "He's dead, Clark."  
  
Again he felt his system go into shock as he uttered. "What?"  
  
"My best and what seems only friend here in Smallville, died a few months ago."  
  
"What happened to him? Was he sick?" Clark asked.  
  
"Pete Ross was the picture of health." She told him. "He was perfectly fine until the big game." Her eyes grew dark as she remembered. "Pete was killed in some childish high school prank."  
  
"Oh, my God." His chest began to heave again.  
  
"The strange thing is he thought he would be perfectly set if he made the football team." She went on and explained. "You see, the Smallville Crows, our football team has this stupid tradition. Every year they pick out some nerd kid and tie him to a pole like a scare crow out in a corn field, just before the big game. I think it's for luck or something. Pete would not have even been in their sights if he hadn't called attention to himself by making second string. I guess he was just so bad, and his own team turned on him. Apparently there were no other nerds rubbing the wrong elbows that week."  
  
She wiped away a tear as she thought back. "Anyway, there use to be this old farmer or someone who owned the land, and he knew to check the pole each year before he went to bed at night. Well. The old man sold his property to the Luthor people and moved away. So no one knew Pete was out there and the team didn't have the brains to check up on him. I heard they even went to some stupid dance that night."  
  
Chloe took a deep breath and finished. "Pete was tied to that pole for two days before anyone found him. They even compared it to that Matthew Shepard kid at first. Only in our story, no one was supposed to get hurt. But after all that time stripped to his draws in the cold Kansas nights, Pete got sick and died of pneumonia a week later."  
  
It was all Clark could do to keep his stomach down. He wanted to get sick all over that room, but he controlled himself. "Pete is dead." He whispered.  
  
"Yeah." She said in a soft agreement. "He was a really good guy too. I think you would have liked him."  
  
"I'm sure of it." He thought back to all the good times he had with his best childhood friend. The worst part was knowing he should have been the one left out on the pole that night. Clark never made it to Earth, and Pete had paid the ultimate price for it.  
  
"So." He spoke again after a few seconds. "Did they ever get the kids who did it?"  
  
"It was the star quarter back and a few other guys on the team." She told him. "They pleaded no contest to an involuntary manslaughter charge. The trial was over quickly and they each got ten years. The quarter back got sixteen."  
  
"Whitney Fordman." Clark said.  
  
"You are really up on your Smallville 411." She gave him a cute smile.  
  
"Pete is dead." He reviewed. "And Whitney is in jail for his murder. Oh God."  
  
Then it stuck him. "Lana?" He grabbed Chloe's arms. "What about Lana Lang.? What happened to her?"  
  
"Lang?" Chloe thought for a minute. "Oh you mean Lana Fordman." She said.  
  
"Fordman?" He repeated.  
  
"Sure, seems her and Whitney had this really torrid love affair thing going on, and they got married over the summer break." She told him.  
  
Again Clark's heart sank. Only this time it was for a lost love. His plan was always to win her from Whitney, but he knew he could not even try to win a married woman. It was not in him.  
  
He stood up and paced the room for a few minutes. All this new information was making his head spin. Could the world have gone so out of line just because of one missed meteor shower? Then he remembered. The whole world was not messed up, just him.  
  
"Why didn't her Aunt stop her?" He asked to himself more than to her.  
  
"I don't have that scoop." Chloe said. "Lana and I were never on the 'in', even before she dropped out of school."  
  
Again, he was taken back. He stared over at her with an open mouth. "Dropped out?"  
  
"Yeah." Chloe returned. "I couldn't believe it myself when I heard. I mean her being the star prom queen and all. But I'm sure she had her reasons."  
  
"Do you know what they were?"  
  
"Other than her husband being sent up the river?" Chloe remarked. "I have my suspicions, but I don't do the whole gossip thing. It's not my beat on the paper. If you want to know more, then you'll have to go to the source."  
  
"You know where Lana is?" His voice was filled with so much insistence that she felt a small twinge of hurt.  
  
"Sure." She said not fully understanding why she was already starting to have feelings for this complete stranger. Yet he wanted information about the former beauty queen. So she gave him what he wanted. "Lana works over at the dinner on Main Street. I bought my coffee from her this morning. I guess with her husband in jail. She needed to work on Christmas."  
  
"I have to see her." He grabbed his coat.  
  
"Sure, don't wait around here, hot shot." Chloe gave a snide response.  
  
Clark stopped in his tracks. He knew how he had hurt Chloe in his other life by ignoring her, but he determined not to make that same mistake here. It was unclear how long he would have to remain in this strange new world, and Clark wanted to make sure he did not burn any of his bridges. He needed to keep what few friends he still had.  
  
"Chloe." He said in a soft voice. "It's not like that."  
  
"Like what, Clark?" She said trying to hide her hurt. "It's not like we even know each other."  
  
"Lana." He fought for the right words. "She is an old friend of the Kent family. I need to make sure she is all right."  
  
"Sure." She said again. "Second to prom queens is my lot in life."  
  
Clark walked back to her. In the last few days, he had started seeing Chloe in a new light. In his own world, he was madly in love with Lana and still had a chance to win her heart. He could not lead Chloe on while he loved another. In this world, Lana was married to another man, and he was too forthright to try to break it up. Even if her husband was away for the next sixteen years. If he were going to live in this world, he would have to build a new life for Clark Kent, and that meant he would have to take a different look at some of his old relationships.  
  
"I have to do this." He took her head in his hands. "I don't understand everything that is going on in my life right now. But I promise you, Chloe; if it is at all possible, I will be back." Gently he leaned her head forward and his her forehead.  
  
Chloe could not understand the feeling of emptiness that filled her after he left the room. She had met this man only minutes before, but she could swear that somehow, in that short time, she had fallen in love with him.  
  
"Please come back." She whispered.  
  
  
  
Clark passed the dinner on his way into town, and knew just where to find it. The dinner was located in what was his old hang out after school, the Beanery Coffee House. Along with the rest of Smallville, the restaurant never progressed to it's later 'in style' self.  
  
Reaching the door in a record 'normal walking' time, he paused out side. The place looked old and run down. Yet he could still see what would have become his favorite hot spot in the structure of the building. He remembered how he, Chloe, Lana and Pete would come here after school and just hang out. "Pete." He said softly at the thought of his dead friend.  
  
The restaurant was empty when he looked in the slightly frosted windows. Then a head popped out from behind the counter on the opposite side of the room. It was Lana Lang. Clark's heart skipped a beat when he saw her. She looked tired and a slight bit older. Perhaps it was the new stresses on her life that made her appear that way. Yet even with her messy hair pulled back in a bun and her complexion looking flush and rutty, She was still a beautiful sight to his weary eyes.  
  
A small bell was hit by the door when he walked in.  
  
"Merry Christmas." Lana's voice came from behind the counter. "Feel free to sit wherever you would like. I'll be right with you." She never looked up at him. She was intensely looking for something.  
  
"Lose something?" He attempted to make light conversation.  
  
"I put the new order slips here when they came in last week, and I can't find them." She found herself explaining.  
  
Clark took a moment to stare at the counter and then announced. "Try the second shelf under the cash register to your far left."  
  
Lana looked up to him for the first time with an odd expression. Slowly she walked to the other end of the room and peered down. With shock in her face, she pulled out a new book of ordering slips.  
  
"How did you do that?" She smiled with astonishment.  
  
Clark shrugged his shoulder and gave her a quick grin. "That's where I would keep them."  
  
"Well just for that." She beamed a big smile. "The first coffee is on the house."  
  
"Thanks. Could you make that a hot chocolate?" He said, taking a table near the window.  
  
Lana reached behind herself and poured a cup of cocoa for him. He watched attentively as she approached the end of the counter. It was then that he saw her mid section. "You're pregnant." He blurted out before he realized.  
  
Lana looked down at her mid bulging stomach. "Yes I am." She smiled politely. "A little more than five months."  
  
Clark diverted his stare. "I'm sorry." He said hastily. "You look so young. I was just surprised."  
  
"It's okay, I am young." She chuckled placing the cup in front of him. "I'm sure I would get that allot more if everyone in Smallville didn't already know. Which proves my suspicions about you. You are new around here, aren't you?"  
  
"Yes," He sniffed the warm cup. "I'm A.." He hated to continue with the lies, but he felt he had no choice. "I'm a cousin to the Kent family. A distant cousin."  
  
"Well I'll be darn." She said. "Martha was in here just this morning, and she never said anything about a visit from a handsome young cousin."  
  
He blushed and tried to hide it behind the cup. "They didn't know until I got in a few hours ago." He took a sip. "I'm from out of town."  
  
"Most strangers are." She laughed.  
  
He wiped his hand on his jeans and held it out to her. "My name is Clark, Clark Kent."  
  
"Well it's very nice to meet you Clark, Clark Kent." She joked.  
  
He smiled sheepishly at her.  
  
"Lana Fordman." She returned. "So what can I get you?" She asked holding up her new note pad.  
  
"Oh." He reached into his pocket. He had found some spare change scattered around the Kent's old farm house and placed it all into his front right pants pocket. He quickly counted it. "What can I get for..." He double checked. "A dollar seventy two."  
  
Lana thought he looked sweet with his small handful of change.  
  
"I'm sorry." He said awkwardly. "I forgot my wallet."  
  
"That's okay." She smiled. "I'll get you a piece of the best apple pie in all of Kansas."  
  
"Thank you." He nodded.  
  
After she had walked away, Clark kicked himself for being so out of place around her. He needed to make her comfortable so he could learn more about this new reality and her place in it. It was not much, but he knew he had to collect all the knowledge of his new surroundings that he could. It was the only weapon he could think to arm himself with. It might help him figure out a plan to get back to his Kansas.  
  
She brought the pie over and placed the plate in front of him. "It's on the house." She smiled.  
  
"Thank you." He smiled back. "Won't you sit and talk to me for a few minutes?"  
  
"I don't know." She searched the rest of the room.  
  
"Please." He added. "I could use the company, and I'm sure you could use a few minutes off you feet. I promise, all I want is polite conversation."  
  
She eyed him for a few seconds and then determined he was no danger to her. "Okay." She said taking the seat across the table from him.  
  
Clark took a bite of the pie. "You weren't kidding about this pie."  
  
"It is good, isn't it?"  
  
"The best." He almost spat with a full mouth.  
  
"So, what do you think of Smallville?" She asked leaning her head on her right palm.  
  
"It lives up to its name." Clark had forgotten how long it had been since he had eaten. He ate the pie in a few minutes.  
  
"Some towns will do that." She laughed.  
  
"I ran into an old friend of yours over at the high school." He started licking his fork. "Chloe Sullivan, with the Ledger."  
  
"Chloe?" Lana questioned. "We hardly know each other. She stops in here on her way to school most days. But I would hardly call us friends."  
  
"Well, she had this picture on the wall of your cheer leading days, and she gave me a little bio on you."  
  
"Did she really?" Lana's look grew stern.  
  
"Oh, it's nothing bad." He tried to save face. "I just asked her where you had disappeared to, and she told me how you married the Crow's quarter back, and then dropped out of school a few months later." His eyes drifted to her belly.  
  
"Whitney and I had an agreement when we got married." She felt she had to explain. "He was looking at some serious scholarship money and a future in the pros, so we decided I would be the one to drop out and support us until his career took off." Her eyes then drifted away also.  
  
"Then the whole Pete Ross thing happened." He continued for her.  
  
She looked up surprised. "What did Chloe tell you about Pete?" She demanded.  
  
"Not much." He said quickly. "I kinda knew Pete in a former life." The irony of how true his statement was, stung at Clark. "I had heard about that stupid big game tradition. I know Whitney didn't mean to hurt Pete. It was all some crazy mistake."  
  
Lana looked into his sympathetic eyes. "Yes it was." She agreed with a hurt look. "Whitney is a wonderful man, and he never meant for Pete to get hurt. He even liked him in a distant sort of way. Pete was a good kid."  
  
"I know."  
  
"I can't tell you how upset Whitney was when he found out Pete had died." She allowed her thoughts to drift back. "He turned himself in right away. For a while there, I think he would have taken his own life if it were not for me and baby."  
  
Clark put his hand over hers when a tear rolled down her face. "You have no idea how hard it has been for all of us since it happened."  
  
"I can only imagine." He replied.  
  
"I had to take this job on full time after he went to jail."  
  
"Won't your Aunt Nell help you?"  
  
"Nell?" She looked surprised at the mention of the name. Nell lives with her husband up in Metropolis. We barely speak once a year over the phone. Why would I ask her for help?"  
  
"I'm sorry." He said. "I just thought you might be close to her or something."  
  
"I wish I were." Lana said. "I use to dream about running away and going to live with her in the city."  
  
"Really." He took a sip of the cocoa. "Were things rough at your house?"  
  
"My folks are the pictures of dysfunctional." She told him. "My Dad could hardly hold a job for more than a year after he lost the flower shop. When the Luthor Corp. people bought up most of the town, his choices became very limited. They even tried archeology for a while, but they didn't have the talent for it. So we moved back to Smallville, and then the marriage started to get rocky."  
  
"Wow. I'm sorry."  
  
"So was I." Lana Agreed. "About a year ago my Mom had enough and moved to the city with her sister. I decided to stay in Smallville to be near Whitney."  
  
"Is your Dad still here?"  
  
"If you call the shell of a man who drinks himself to sleep every night my Father? Yes." She said. "Since I had no real parental supervision after my Mom left, I started staying out on all nighters. It wasn't long before Whitney and I decided I had to get away from him, so we decided to get married. Over the summer break we ran off to one of those southern states where the legal age is allot younger and we got married. I never went home or looked back since."  
  
"Where is your father?"  
  
"Still in that empty house, drinking." She said. "He's been selling his land off a little at a time to support himself. The house is just about all he has left."  
  
"I'm so sorry, Lana." Clark said patting her hand. He recalled how his Lana thought her life would be so much better if her parents were still alive, but the illusion seemed much better than the actual thing.  
  
Lana wiped a tear away. "I don't mean to be telling you all my life story." She said. "There's just something about you." She looked deeply into his eyes. "I don't know what it is, but I feel like I can trust you like we are old friends or something."  
  
"Maybe we were meant to be." He beamed her a smile.  
  
"Ever since I left school, Whitney has been the only friend I had." She told him. "We have a baby on the way, and now he's gone."  
  
"How is he handling jail?" He was almost afraid to ask.  
  
"Oh Clark." Her eyes filled with tears again. "They put him in an adult prison. Do you know what they do to young men in those places?"  
  
Clark hanged his head.  
  
"It has gotten to the point that I can hardly even go see him." She cried. "He can barely look me in the eyes anymore. They have broken his spirit. Even if he gets out early on good behavior, he will never be the same man again."  
  
Clark did not know what to say. He sat silently for a few minutes and let her cry softly.  
  
"Things were not supposed to be like this." He said softly. "Things were to be better, not worst without the meteors."  
  
She raised her head and gave him a strange look.  
  
"None of this is right." He said before realizing he was speaking to her.  
  
"Life is not always right, Clark." Lana said. "We just have to learn to live with the cards we are dealt and try to make the best of it."  
  
"No." He stood. "This is not right. I have to fix things."  
  
"What are you talking about?"  
  
He gave her a blank stare. Pulling the change from his pocket, he tossed the handful onto the table. "I wish it could be more." He said.  
  
"Where are you going, Clark?" She asked grabbing his arm. "You look upset."  
  
"I have to find someone who can help me get back." He said. "Help us all get back to where we belong."  
  
"What are you saying?" She stood.  
  
He backed up against the wall with a far away look in his eyes. "This is all wrong, Lana." He no longer cared if she knew the truth. "I have to get us all back to where we belong. Where my parents still have the farm." His Eyes became pools of reflective moisture. "Where Pete is still alive and he Chloe and I are all friends. Where Whitney is still in school and trying out for scholarships. And you are happy with your Aunt wishing for your parents. Where we all have a future."  
  
"Clark, you are starting to scare me." She warned.  
  
"And where Lex..." He stopped. It occurred to him that Lex was the only friend he had not seen yet, and the only person who had the resources to get him the help he needed. "Lex Luthor." He said out loud. "Does he still live in Smallville?"  
  
"I don't think so." She replied with a bit of fear in her voice. "His father stays at the old mansion they had moved here years ago, but Lex works out of Metropolis."  
  
"It's Christmas." He wrapped himself in his arms. "Does he spend the holidays with his father?"  
  
"I would think so." She replied.  
  
Clark suddenly saw himself in the mirror on the wall. He took a good look at how he was scaring Lana. "I'm sorry Lana." He quickly stood up again. "I'm sorry I'm just a little out of sorts today."  
  
She tried to smile at him. "It's okay Clark." She lied.  
  
"No, it's not, and I promise I will make this up to you." He told her. "I am just having a really hard time adjusting to all the bad news I heard today."  
  
"It's okay Clark, Bad things happen in life."  
  
"I know you don't understand all of this." He wiped away his tears. "But this is not what your life should have become. Smallville is not supposed to die like this."  
  
"There is not much we can do about it." She said.  
  
"We can't, but Lex can." He tried to smile. "If he can't help me find a way home, then he can sure make Smallville a whole lot better than it is."  
  
"Why would a man like Lex Luthor help Smallville?" She asked.  
  
"Because I will ask him." He smiled for real. "My friend Lex would help, and all I need to do is get this Lex to agree with me."  
  
Lana watched as he ran out the door and toward the Luthor mansion. A Soft rain began to fall.  
  
  
  
The Luthor Castle, as it was often referred to, was as gloomy and dark as Clark remembered it. As depressing as it had made Clark feel in the past, it was a refreshing sight to his eyes that day. All of Smallville was different, but the mansion was still the same as it was when he last saw it in his Kansas. He slipped between the wet bars of the gates like he always did, and made his way to the door.  
  
By the time he reached the entrance, he was soaked and the rain was dripping off his face. It was only seconds before he heard the heavy approaching of tinny foot steps. Clark turned and saw a pack of large dogs racing at him. His common reaction was fear as he pressed back against the door. With a slight push of his right hand, he forced the locked door open and slipped inside, moments before the guard dogs reached him. He leaned against the closed door and tried to catch his breath again.  
  
"That's a neat trick. Now tell me how you did it." A voice said ahead of him in the dark hall.  
  
Clark squinted his eyes and tried to adjust his sight to the dim light. "Lex?" He recognized the voice.  
  
"Very well." Lex's voice said. "You know my name. Now before you take one step, tell me your name and answer how you got in here in the first place."  
  
"Oh come on, Lex." Clark's chest was heaving. "Not you too." He was making a puddle of rain water in the grand foyer.  
  
A small object flickered in the dim light as Lex approached him. His new appearance surprised Clark. He still looked very much like his Lex, but he had a full head of bright red hair that was pulled back in a pony tail. His slight grin was replaced by suspicious eyes.  
  
"No, not you too." Clark dropped to his knees. The familiar look of the mansion had raised his hopes that he would find his old friend inside.  
  
Lex held up the shinny metallic object to his head. It was a hand gun. "You have three seconds to explain yourself, or my house keeper will be cleaning your blood off my imported floor."  
  
"My name is Clark Kent." He said in a soft defeated tone. "I'm from out of town, related to the Kents at the hardware store." The story was all too rehearsed, but he made no attempts to hide that fact.  
  
He was staring down at the floor when Lex continued. "How did you get pass the gate, and the dogs not to mention into the house?"  
  
"I don't know, adrenaline." Clark rubbed his eyes and forehead with the palm of his hands.  
  
"What do you want here?"  
  
Clark leaned over and pushed his way back up to his feet. "I'm not sure anymore. I thought you were someone else."  
  
"This is the Luthor mansion and I am Lex Luthor. Whom were you expecting to see, kid?"  
  
Clark walked over to the steps and sat on the bottom two. "I came here to see you. I thought even if you didn't remember me, then you might know how to get me back." His voice was monotone and solemn.  
  
Lex never took his eyes off the young home breaker. "Get you back, where?"  
  
"Kansas." Clark hung his head between his knees. "My Kansas."  
  
"This is Kansas, kid. But you are not Dorothy." Lex remarked sarcastically. "What kind of drugs are you on?"  
  
"No drugs." Clark kept rubbing his eyes, perhaps hoping to wake up from some nightmare. "I don't know how I got here. All I do know is, that I don't belong here."  
  
"I could have told you that." Lex said back.  
  
"Please, Lex." Clark looked up at him. "You have to help me. I don't know who else could."  
  
"Listen kid. I'm not in the charity business." He told Clark. "I want you out of my house."  
  
"But, Lex. Don't you understand? I know you and you are supposed to know me." Clark's voice was pleading. "We have been friends for months now. You should be living here in Smallville, not Metropolis. We met when you ran off the road in October."  
  
Lex was transfixed by the younger man's behavior.  
  
"I know this sounds strange, but I come from a Smallville where you and I are friends, my folks still own the farm, Pete is still alive, and Chloe and Lana are not alone." Clark tried to explain. "I think this is some kind of alternate universe or something."  
  
Lex's eyes grew large. "I was right, and you are on drugs."  
  
"No." Clark stood up. "Things are way out of whack, and when I am around all types of strange things seem to happen. I thought this was all a dream at first, but it's all too real. I really think I have been sent into an alternate reality. A place where the meteor showers never hit." It all seemed to make sense to him now. How else could all these things be so? "I need to get back to my reality."  
  
"Sure kid, and when you wake up with your hang over tomorrow morning, you'll be in a nice little holding cell down at the Smallville jail." Lex told him.  
  
"You wouldn't do that to me, Lex." Clark began to approach him. "I know you can't be all that different from the Lex I know. He would never harm me."  
  
"Stay back." Lex warned.  
  
"It's okay Lex." Clark tried to smile. "I won't hurt you. I just need to make you understand."  
  
"There's nothing to understand." Lex said. "I want you out of my house."  
  
"No, Lex. You know me and I can prove it." Clark insisted. "You were nine years old the first time you came to Smallville with your father. Your mother died at a very young age. You're still grieving for her. Your father had this castle sent over from Scotland a few years back."  
  
"All those things are either public records or easy to figure out." Lex waved the gun trying to suppress his slow approach. "Get out."  
  
"I know more, Lex." Clark reached his arms out to touch his friend's shoulders, only to be met with the loud burst of a bullet being fired from the gun. His body jerked back and a look of horror came to his face.  
  
Lex shook violently for a second. "My God, why did you make me do that kid?"  
  
Clark looked down at the burn stain that the gun powder had made on his shirt and the small hole where it had gone through. He gasped for air.  
  
"Maggie!" Lex screamed for his servant.  
  
Clark lurched forward and fell against Lex as the two of them slid to the floor. "I just wanted to talk." He said with deep breaths. "I wanted to tell you about the scarf, hat and mitten sets."  
  
Lex dropped the gun and held onto Clark.  
  
"Your mother use to make them for you." Clark was desperately trying to catch his breath. "You hated them and would lose them every year, but she kept making more."  
  
"How, how do you know that?" Lex asked trying to keep him from convulsing.  
  
"You told me." Clark looked into his eyes. "You told me yesterday when we were driving back from the city." He groaned. "You and I are friends, Lex." The world then went black for Clark.  
  
"Maggie!" He screamed again. "Call 911."  
  
"Wake up kid." Lex slapped his face. "Don't die in my house." He slowly put Clark's head down on the floor and lifted his shirt where the bullet had gone through. To his surprise the small piece of lead fell from the folds of his tee-shirt hitting the floor with a tiny ping sound. Upon further inspection, Lex found a small red mark on Clark's mid section, but no blood or entry wound.  
  
Lex jumped back and staggered to his feet. His own breathing was short and shallow from the startling revelations.  
  
Just then two uniformed security guards came rushing up the hall.  
  
"Mr. Luthor, we got here from the guard house as soon as we could." One said.  
  
"It's about time. Where have you been?" Lex tried not to show that he was upset by the intruders unnatural abilities.  
  
"We secured the perimeters first, sir." The other guard explained.  
  
"He's alive." The first officer had inspected Clark. "We will inform the police at once."  
  
"No." Lex said. "There is no need to get the police involved. Pick the kid up and tie him to a chair in one of the spare rooms. I need to get some answers from him first." A different look came across Lex's face. One that Clark would not know for a very long time to come in his world.  
  
It was unclear how long Clark had been out, but the bullet had knocked the wind out of him and gave is body an uncontrolled jolt that knocked him unconscious for a few minutes. When he woke up, he was in one of the spare bedrooms on the second floor where Clark had never been before.  
  
"So you're awake." Lex stood over him lurking in the dim light. "I was very impressed by your little trick in the foyer."  
  
"What trick?" Clark's head was still foggy.  
  
Lex grabbed the hair on the back of his head and pulled back. "How did you deflect that bullet with your body?'  
  
"I told you." Clark tried to moisten his dry lips. "I'm not from this Kansas."  
  
"No." Lex showed his pearly white teeth in an evil smile. "You look like a very normal kid to me, so there has to be a trick to it. A trick that I can use for myself. There's no telling how much something like this is worth on the market."  
  
To Lex's surprise, Clark was able to jerk his head forward releasing it from his grip without damage to his hair. Lex pulled his hand back with pain.  
  
"Argh." He gritted his jaw.  
  
Clark then snapped the ropes that held him to the chair. "I was wrong about you." He said taking Lex's collar. "You could have killed me back there."  
  
"You broke into my house, remember?"  
  
"I came to you for help." Clark said trying not to lose control of his abilities. "The Lex Luthor I know would never hurt someone who asked for help."  
  
"Then you don't know me, kid." He pulled a stun gun from his back pocket and sapped Clark with it.  
  
Clark jumped back with a jolt and released Lex.  
  
"This is not your everyday stun gun." Lex held up the device. "I had this developed to stop a military tank if I had to. Judging by the way you took the bullet, I determine a slightly lesser voltage would work just fine on you."  
  
Clark was against the wall trying to shake off the results of the stun. "You are a mad man, Lex."  
  
"I am a very rich man, kid." Lex snarled. "If I ever did know you in some other life, then I must have been as much of a sniveling fool as you."  
  
"No." Clark said under his breath. "You were a good friend."  
  
"Lex Luthor doesn't need any friends." He said as he walked over to where Clark was huddled. "They only slow a person down when he's trying to get to the top."  
  
"I thought we understood each other." Clark said softly. His body continued to shake from the effects of the jolt. In most other cases, he knew he would have been up and at Lex in a moment. Yet here he found himself unable to move. Was it the effects of the bullet and stun gun, or his unwillingness to harm Lex.? "I thought we were both outsiders. We were freaks, each in our own way."  
  
Lex crouched down and held the stun gun up over Clark's head. "You're the only freak around here, kid. Now tell me how you did that things you do."  
  
"Please, Lex, Don't." Clark screamed as he brought the weapon down on him. "Ahhhgh."  
  
Lex was surprised when Clark swung his arm out and smacked him hard, sending him flying across the room. The crash against the wall knocked Lex out.  
  
In the corner, Clark tried to shake off the effects of the electric currents. He wanted to move, but found himself holding onto himself and shaking, more with fear than with pain. He glanced over to where Lex laid silently. Pulling as much of himself together as he could, he dragged the rest of his body over to his former friend and felt for a pulse.  
  
After finding one, Clark leaned over him and spoke softly with great grief. "I'm sorry, Lex. I didn't want to hurt you. You gave me no choice." He made two fists and rested them on Lex's chest and then his own head on them. "I thought you would be able to help me. But you are not the Lex I knew. I guess losing your hair and being labeled a freak some how shaped you differently. You were more humble and looking for acceptance. You molded yourself to meet other people's needs. Here you tried to use people to meet your own."  
  
Regaining some of his strength, Clark sat up on his heals. "I'll have to find another way to get back home. I can't stay here in a world where everyone I know and love has changed so much. I can't help them here."  
  
Before he stood up, Clark pulled the stun gun from Lex's hand and smashed it into the floor completely destroying it. "These are the toys a person like you should never have."  
  
He made his way to one of the three doors on either side of the room. To his surprise, the door opened up to another bed room. Adjusting his eyes to an even darker light, he saw that there was a person lying on the bed. Clark approached and saw that it was Lionel Luthor who was looking up at the ceiling with large helpless eyes.  
  
"Mr. Luthor." Clark leaned over him to no response. "Oh my God, what has happened to you?"  
  
"He's right where I want him." Lex's voice came from back at the door. He leaned against the frame to hold himself up. "Don't you dare touch him."  
  
Clark turned to face his former friend. "What have you done to your own father?" He demanded to know.  
  
"I cut him off before he cut me." Lex's eyes seemed to flicker with hate. "He wasn't able to run Luthor Corps the way it should be, so I removed him and took over. Now I run Lex Corp. and it dwarfs anything my father could have ever done."  
  
"You are keeping your own father drugged up here in your castle?"  
  
"Actually, kid." Lex seemed to be regaining his strength and stood up on his own. "I only used the drugs a couple of times. You would be amazed at how easy it was to have a drug developed to induce several massive strokes. The plan was to have him around until I properly obtained all his assets. Then once that was done, I just grew found of knowing he was here at my mercy, so I decided to let him live. Of course that would depend of your own interpretation of living."  
  
"You are sick and warped Lex." Clark shot at him in rage. "This is beyond anything any human would ever do to their own parent."  
  
"Spare me the morality play, kid." Lex held up his first gun, again. "I admit you threw me for a loop when you first broke in and I shot you, but we both know who the non human is here. You and I don't know each other despite anything you say, and I have no desire to know you, so say goodbye."  
  
At that moment the two guards walked back in with guns drawn. "Shoot him and don't stop until I tell you." Lex ordered.  
  
Clark dived through the hail of smoke and bullets away from the bed in hopes that Lionel would not be hurt by the fall out. He made a mad dash for the window and dived out landing two stories below on the wet snow- covered grass.  
  
His sight was about to go dark as Clark forced himself to remain conscious. He could not fall here. Lex may never allow him to wake up again. Pushing his frail and tied body to its feet, he continued to make a run for the gate. He was able to squeeze through the bars again, just as the dogs nipped at his heal. Gathering all his ability, he began to run back toward the town at his top human speed. He was too tired to reach anything faster.  
  
  
  
The sun had been down for at least an hour when Clark made his way back to the Kent's apartment. He was unsure what he should do next, but he hoped that being with his folks would bring him some sense of peace. He was winded and rundown by the time he made the top of the stairs. All he wanted was to shake off the effects of the blows his body had taken and get some rest. He needed to regroup his physical self as well as his mental thoughts.  
  
He leaned against the door frame and knocked softly.  
  
It took only a few seconds for the door to open and a happy Martha Kent stood there with open arms. "Clark." She greeted with a hearty smile.  
  
"Ma...." Was about all he could say before he fell forward landing face down on her kitchen floor.  
  
It was a few more minutes before Clark opened his eyes again. In that time, he had been moved from the floor to the sofa in the small living room. Martha had placed a cold cloth on his forehead.  
  
He smiled up at her worried face. "Ma.." He started again before catching himself. "Martha Kent." He said.  
  
"You know how to give a person a start." She said trying to be stern and comforting at the same time. "Are you all right now?"  
  
"Yeah." He pulled off the cloth as he sat up. "I just got a little over exerted." He lied.  
  
"Well it is a little unusual, but I guess these things can happen." She agreed reluctantly. "What happened to your shirt?"  
  
Clark looked down and saw the small hole surrounded by burnt gun powder. "Oh." He tried to think quickly. "I was trying to help someone with a snow blower and it back fired on me. Would have gotten me worst if I hadn't jumped back fast enough."  
  
The lies were coming all to easily to him now, and he was not happy with himself. He hated the process he had to use to make his way around in this new world.  
  
"So, how did the delivery go?" He tried to make light conversation and divert any more questions from him. This was the closes he had to home at the moment, and he was going to make the best of it. With everything else that was going wrong, he wanted to have a nice normal conversation with his mother, even if she had no idea who he was.  
  
"The Johnson family has a nice new baby girl." She said with a smile. "The birth went smoothly."  
  
"That's good to hear." Clark tried to be happy for her. "You really love your job, don't you?"  
  
"There is no greater reward than to bring a life into this world." Martha agreed. "Since Jonathan and me never had children of our own, I guess this was the next best thing."  
  
"I'm sure you would have made a great mother." Clark told her with a great assuredness. "You just seem to be a loving person."  
  
"Well, I don't pick up every stranger who passes out at my front door." She joked while she took the cloth from his hands. "Just the ones my husband tells me are kin."  
  
Clark was surprised at how much better he felt just being in her presence. He gave her his famous smile. "So where is cousin Jonathan?"  
  
"He'll be back soon." She said walking into the kitchen. "He wouldn't tell me where he was going. Just that he had to see about something."  
  
"Oh." Clark was not aware that Jonathan had become a man of secrets. He followed her into the kitchen. His legs were still a little stringy, but he made his way to a chair at the table with no problems.  
  
"So how is your family doing up in Boston?" She asked as she mixed the contents of some pots on the stove.  
  
"All well, from what they tell me over the phone." He hated having to tell her about people he had never met. "I guess I won't know for sure until I get there tomorrow."  
  
He did not even want to think about what he would have to do next if he could not get back. He would have to come up with more lies later. Right now he wanted the peace and comforts of a home.  
  
"See if you recognize this taste." She said walking over to him holding a wooden spoon with her stuffing on the end.  
  
Clark took the mouthful happily and basked in this small flavor of home. "Oh, I always loved this stuffing." This time he did not have to lie.  
  
"So you do recognize it." She beamed. "I gave your mother this recipe right after I married Jonathan, and she promised to use it with all of her turkey dinners. I see she kept her word."  
  
"Don't you worry, cousin Martha." He ate the remainder on the spoon. "My Mom makes the best stuffing in the world." Again, he did not lie. To him, Martha's stuffing was the best in the world.  
  
She was pleased with his reaction. "It will be nice for you to have a taste of home with your Christmas dinner."  
  
"Yes it will." He agreed trying to block out all the other bad things that had happen that day.  
  
A key was heard being used on the front door. "I guess. Jonathan is home." She smiled again.  
  
Clark took a cookie from the plate on the table, and ate it.  
  
Jonathan made his way into the kitchen with a worried look on his face.  
  
"Jonathan, what's wrong?" Martha asked.  
  
"Him." He pointed at a startled Clark.  
  
"Cousin, Jonathan?" Clark swallowed his cookie. "Is something wrong?"  
  
"Yes." He leaned over the sitting teen. "You are wrong Clark. You are all wrong."  
  
"Jonathan." Martha came up behind him. "What are you doing? You're scaring the boy."  
  
Clark was wide eyed looking up at his father.  
  
"What kind of country hicks do you take us for, son?" He said more as a statement than a question. "Do you think we would accept a complete stranger without ever asking questions?"  
  
Clark sat frozen in fear. He knew his cover had been blown.  
  
"I called cousin Bobby a few hours ago." Jonathan Continued, to both of them. "It seems they have a son, only his name is Bobby junior and he's only seven. There is no Clark Kent and there never has been. What kind of a scam are you running here?"  
  
"I swear that it's no scam." Clark assured them. "I just needed a place to go."  
  
"So you thought the dumb Kents over the hardware store were a good mark?"  
  
"Not a mark." His voice was breaking up with small squeaks of fear and lost hope. "I knew you were good people and would invite me willingly into your home. I never meant any harm. I just wanted a place to rest."  
  
"Jonathan." Martha pulled him back. "Can't you see whoever this boy is, he's in trouble and needs our help? We owe him, as good Christians. We need to hold out our hands to a fellow man."  
  
"Not this little slime ball, Martha." He surprised his wife with his words. She had never heard him talk so badly about anyone. Not even the Luthors. He turned back to Clark. "After the phone call, I did a little checking up on you. It turned out you had a very productive day."  
  
"I went to see some people." Clark defended himself with a sheepish tone.  
  
"What people, Clark?" Jonathan asked. "Why did you have to break into the high school? Who was there that you could not have seen at their home. Anyplace, where the doors were not locked."  
  
"I went to see Chloe Sullivan." He said. "She was working in the ledger's newspaper office."  
  
"Yes, she said she found you rummaging through the office."  
  
"I didn't take anything." He insisted.  
  
"What about the Chocolate and apple pie Lana Fordman gave you out of the kindness of her heart only to have you bring up all the dirt in her life and then scare the living daylights out of her with some freaky story about everything being wrong."  
  
Clark put his head down on the table and tried not to lose control of his emotions. "The worst came a little while ago." Jonathan added.  
  
Clark raised his head with alarm.  
  
"That's right young man." Jonathan's look was stern. "The police are looking for you right now."  
  
"Oh dear Lord." Martha gasped. "What have you done, Clark?"  
  
"We don't even know if that is his real name, Martha." Jonathan warned.  
  
"I..." Clark was hesitant to answer.  
  
"He broke into Lex Luthor's home and threaten him at a gun point, in his sick father's bed room."  
  
"That's a lie!" Clark jumped up on his shaky legs. "Lex was the one with the gun."  
  
Martha gasped again.  
  
"He and his guards shot at me." Clark tried to tell him.  
  
"Because you had a gun and they thought you were strung out on drugs." Jonathan told him. "You broke into the man's house for God's sake. Into his helpless father's room."  
  
"That's not how it was." Clark cried. "I broke in to get him to help me. I never threaten anyone."  
  
"You were on drugs." Martha added. "Is that why you passed out at the door?"  
  
"No." Clark's voice was a pleading whine. "Lex and his men worked me over, and I was recovering from the fight, that is all. I passed out from exhaustion."  
  
"I checked you out when I brought you over to the sofa." Martha said. "You don't have a mark on you anywhere. All I saw was that hole in your shirt and the burn marks." She stopped quickly "Oh my God." She gasped again. "That is a gun powder burn and the hole was from a bullet."  
  
Jonathan grabbed at his shirt and inspected the hole.  
  
Clark saw the horror in his eyes when he looked up again. "Get out of my house, now." He had never seen Jonathan so angry in all his fifteen years. The fire was burning in his father's soul and Clark could swear he felt his heart melting from the heat.  
  
"Please don't throw me out." Clark fell on one his father's shoulders. "I have no where else to go. I don't know where I belong anymore."  
  
Jonathan pushed him away. "Get out." He said in a low steady voice.  
  
Clark sighed in grief. "You don't understand. I want to stay here with you. Everyone's memory of me was erased. You have to believe me. I need you."  
  
He walked over to Martha and stood before her. "I'm your son." He cried. "I'm your son Clark."  
  
A look came across Martha's face he had never seen before. Part rage, part disgust and part horror. She gathered all her strength and slapped him across the face, hard.  
  
Jonathan grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt and lead him to the door. "It's time for you to leave, son." He pushed him out into the hallway and slammed the door just after he dropped his jacket next to him.  
  
Clark did not even try to fight against his father. Once in the hallway, he leaned against the door convulsing uncontrolled with tears. "Mom and Dad, please don't do this. I need your help." He took a deep breath sliding his head to the ground. "Please, I love you. Don't throw me out." Under his breath he wheezed. "I'm alone. I have no where else to go."  
  
Martha leaned on the other side of the door listening to the hushed words of a young man, who in the short time they knew each other, she somehow loved like a son. Jonathan held her as she cried into his strong arms.  
  
  
  
The town streets were cold and deserted when Clark made his way down Main Street. He was completely lost and alone now. All the people he had loved and trusted had turned away from him. Still trapped in a world that was not his own, he had nowhere to turn. His only course of action was to walk down the deserted roads with all their festive Christmas lights shining like lamps in the night.  
  
"I guess I should go back to the farm house." He thought. It was no longer home, but it was a roof over his head until he could get some answers on how to get back home. In his normal condition he would be able to make the run in minutes flat, but he was not his usual self that night. The beatings his body had taken the last two days were taking their toll on him. He needed to get some rest and some food in his stomach. Neither of these things seemed to be within his grasps at that moment.  
  
He was walking pass a large building when he heard the approaching sounds of some sirens nearing him. Not knowing what would happen if he were arrested, Clark chose to hide in the doorway of the structure.  
  
After the police had passed, Clark took a minute to notice where he was. He was in front of the church he and his parents had attended his whole life. He tried the door and found that it was unlocked.  
  
Clark slipped into the warmth of the sanctuary and enjoyed the heat to his bones again. The church was small and peaceful. He made his way slowly to the modest altar where he had prayed almost every Sunday of his life. All else seemed to be going wrong, and Clark knew his situation was beyond hope. Mustering up what he thought was the last of his energy, he kneeled at the steps to the platform where the Pastor preached each service and began to pray out loud.  
  
"Heavenly Father." He began. "I know you have always allowed me to come before you for worship and blessings. You have always been there even when I haven't been there for you. You always provided me with the answers even when I thought there were none. I need one of those answers tonight, God."  
  
He wiped away a tear that rolled down his cheek. "I know everyone here thinks I am some kind of mental case, but you know that I don't belong here. I don't know how I woke up in this strange place, but I want to go home. I need to go home."  
  
Clark leaned over in a groan as he spoke. "God, I'm asking you to provide me with the answers. I need to know how to get back home."  
  
His voice lowered into a personal prayer of peace and healing. Clark was unaware of the soft foot steps that approached him from the back of the church. The owner of the shoes was deliberately quiet as she approached. It was a few minutes before she decided to interrupt his meditation.  
  
"Clark?" She finally said.  
  
He was so deep in prayer, and he missed the sound of his own name.  
  
"Clark Kent?" She repeated.  
  
That time Clark heard her and raised his tear filled eyes. He was surprised by whom he saw before him. "Cassandra?" He choked back. The revelation of seeing her was made all the more poignant by the fact that she had been dead for months.  
  
"You are Clark Kent, aren't you?" She asked looking at him.  
  
"Yes." He answered in astonishment.  
  
"Then tell me how I know that." She said.  
  
Her eyes were piercing his as he sat up straight. "You're not blind." He said before he realized.  
  
"I never was." She replied. "At least I don't think so."  
  
Clark pushed himself up to his feet. "How do you know my name?" He asked.  
  
"That is a good question, young man." She shook her shaky finger at him. "I know I have never seen you before in my life, and yet some how, I think I know you. Can you explain that?"  
  
"Where do I begin?" Clark was lost in his own thoughts again. "We are supposed to know each other." He told her. "Where I come from, we knew each other."  
  
Cassandra sat on the first pew and reflected on what he said. "Where do you come from?" She finally looked up at him.  
  
"It's hard to explain." He took a seat on the same bench and faced her. "Most people think I am crazy when I tell them."  
  
"I know your name, and we have never met before." She said as a mater of fact. "Am I crazy?"  
  
"No." Clark assured her with wide eyes. "Nothing here makes sense to me, and somehow you are tapped into my own reality. Everyone else has had their memories of me erased, but you still hold on to some pieces."  
  
"Neither of us belongs here, do we Clark?"  
  
Clark hesitated.  
  
"It's all right." She tried to smile. "I woke up this morning, and I knew something was not right. I knew in my heart of hearts that I did not belong here."  
  
"Join the club." Clark's eyes drifted to the floor.  
  
"I think I am here because of you, Clark." She said reaching for his hand. "Tell me, are we close where you came from?"  
  
"For a short while, yes." He was not sure if he should tell her, but he saw in her eyes that she needed answers as much as he did. "You and I met in a nursing home program for my school. I read to you in the afternoons, and you..." He stopped wondering if he should go on.  
  
"I, what? Tell me child." She encouraged.  
  
"You had this ability back there. You touched people and were able to see their futures." He told her.  
  
"How, unusual." She smiled. "I mean I have been known to make an old woman's prediction from time to time, but I have never been able to see the future."  
  
"I know, it's because the accident never happened." He said softly.  
  
"What accident?" She asked.  
  
Clark felt he could tell her everything he had been dying to tell all his other love ones all day. "In my world, Smallville was hit by a strange meteor. shower twelve years ago. Since then allot of strange and unusual things have been happening. Your back yard was hit and the blast burnt out the retinas of your eyes. You were able to see the future in your mind after that. But here."  
  
"Here the meteors never came." She finished. "Everything was changed then. Including you."  
  
He was surprised by her remarkable insight. Even without her powers, she could still see the real Clark Kent. "I..." He was nervous telling her. His father told him that no one should ever know where he really came from. For fears that people would come and take him away if they knew what he really was. This had shaped the Kent's life for the last twelve years, and Clark was not sure if he should share the only family secret they had. Yet he needed a friend and here not even the Kent's knew the family secret. Walking out on faith, Clark said the words he had never said to anyone outside of his parents. "The meteor storm brought me to Earth." He said. "The Kent's found me, in a tiny rocket, in one of their corn fields that day."  
  
To his surprise, Cassandra's expression did not change. She was attentive and understanding.  
  
"I think I'm some kind of space alien." He told her looking for some type of reaction. "Only some how history was changed over night, and I never landed on Earth. My rocket and the meteors were deflected. I think I burned up in the sun."  
  
"The strange thing is that I always thought things would be better for my family and friends if I never came here, only now everything is worst than it ever was." He told her further.  
  
Clark was not aware that a tear had begun to roll down his face. She reached up and wiped it away while touching his face tenderly. "You poor child." She said softly.  
  
"All I want is to get back to my home." He said in a hushed sob.  
  
Cassandra pulled him close and placed his head on her shoulder. "That must be the reason God sent me here." She told him. "Oh dear Clark," Her voice was almost a cackle. "Don't you see what has happened here? You have been given a great gift."  
  
Clark was unsure as to what she meant. He remained silent when she continued.  
  
"I don't know what is in store for you in the future, but it must be very important if the God in heaven himself has sent you to a place that no one has ever seen, just so you can realize your own self worth to the people around you" Cassandra explained. "It must involve a whole lot more than just you and your friends. The good Lord hasn't done anything like this since the bible days."  
  
"Wait," Clark pulled himself away. "Are you trying to say that this is all some special lesson for me from God?" The disbelief was heavy in his tone.  
  
"Is that so hard to believe?" She asked with concern. "He created the entire universe in six days. Allowed it to rain for forty days and nights and saved only one man and his family because he alone was worthy. He split the Red Sea in half for the Israelites to walk across on dry land because he found Moses worthy. He saved three worthy boys from the flames of a furnace. David, Joseph, Abraham were all found worthy of his grace and granted special blessing. Is it so hard to believe that he would not take the time to show a worthy soul today what the world would be like without him?" She placed both her hands on his face. "I don't know very much right now, but I do know that this is all to bless you with the knowledge of your absence. You have been given a great gift because you are meant for great things, Clark Kent."  
  
Clark removed himself gently from her grasp and stood. He paced before the altar for a few minutes before he turned back to her. "Why would God spend so much time on a person like me? Could he really be this interested in my mind set?"  
  
"God is interested in all his children." She told him. "With you, he chose a more direct approach. You need to take the things you have learn here to heart and carry them with you all the days of your life."  
  
Cassandra rose to her feet and stood next to him. "Your coming to Earth, to Smallville Kansas was never a mistake Clark, and God wants you to know that, in a very big way."  
  
Clark nodded his head in agreement. "I know that now." He said. "I just don't know if it's too late. I don't know how to get back."  
  
"I think you do." She smiled. "Your prayers got you here in the first place and those same prayers brought me to you tonight to answer your questions." She took his hands in hers. "It will be prayer that gets you back, Clark."  
  
He smiled sweetly at her. "You're right." He leaned over and kissed her cheek.  
  
"Oh, goodness." She chuckled and pulled away. "You do have a way."  
  
"Well." He looked down at the steps and then at her again. "I need to get to work. I need to get home."  
  
"And you will." She gave him a large smile. "But remember what you have learn here Clark."  
  
"I know. I'm needed back in my Kansas." He said warmly. "I can't wait to see my real friends again. Some of their copies here are nothing like themselves."  
  
She raised an eyebrow. "Don't be so sure that the people you met today are not the same ones behind the eyes of your friends back home. The only difference made here, was you. Your friends were all the same as they always have been."  
  
Clark felt a twinge of alarm at her statement. It was of no matter, though. All he wanted was to get back home. He needed to be back home.  
  
He was about to return to his knees when he looked up at Cassandra one last time. "Thank you." He gave her a quick hug. "I'll never forget you."  
  
"I know." She said. A small tear rolled down her cheek when he pulled away. "You never did."  
  
He looked at her with a puzzled look.  
  
"Like I told you, Clark." She said. "I knew when I woke up this morning that I did not belong here. Just like I know I will not be in your Kansas when you get back."  
  
He did not know what to say. Cassandra had been the closes he had known to a Grandmother in a long time. He missed her when she left the first time, and he knew he would miss her again. He wanted to lie and say that he would see her on the other side, but he knew lies would not work with her. Cassandra told him God's gift was for him to see the world without him in it, but Clark knew the bigger gift was to have her back in his life again. Even if it were only for a few minutes.  
  
Clark turned away and got down on his knees to pray.  
  
Just then a loud crash was heard at the back of the church and several officers came rushing at them. "There he is." Lex's voice came from behind the police. "I knew I saw him duck in here."  
  
"Hold it right there." One police man yelled holding up his gun.  
  
Cassandra turned back to Clark. "You must go now." She said. "You must get home. Do not allow yourself to be trapped here."  
  
Clark knew her words were right. He saw the fire exit door off to the left of the altar and made a run for it. Before anyone had time to react, he crashed through the wood door out to the snow-covered yard.  
  
The police all rushed up the aisle toward the door at the same time. Cassandra saw only one chance and threw herself in front of them. No one had time to react, and she was trampled to the ground under their feet.  
  
Lex remained behind as they all made their way out the broken door. He stooped over a battered and bleeding Cassandra.  
  
"Mr. Luthor." She faked a smile through her pain. "We meet again."  
  
He grabbed the hair on the back of her head violently. "You and I have never met, foolish old woman. I will see that you spend the rest of your days in jail for helping a fugitive of the law."  
  
"You have no control over the things of God, Lex." She smirked.  
  
"You forget, old Woman. Here in Smallville, I am a god." He pulled a small plastic sealed bag with one black strand of hair contained inside. "One way or another, I will have what I want."  
  
She said nothing but continued to smile up at him with a bleeding lip. Behind her eyes was a sense of fear.  
  
Lex looked over with disgust at the door.  
  
Clark had been able to put on enough speed to avert the police and make it to the outskirts of town before they could catch him. In the distance he heard sirens calling in the darkness of the night. He had only gotten away for the moment. Already winded when he reached the bridge at the foot of the small city, he knew he needed to find a quiet place. A safe place, to pray. All he had was a word of knowledge from an elder of the faith, but it was the only hope he had obtained so far.  
  
The snow started falling heavy around him again. He leaned on the railing and chuckled as he realized where he was. This was the very place where he first met Lex. The Lex in his world who had become one of his closes if not best friends. This was when he first witnessed the level of his own super human strength. Where Clark Kent's Life, had changed forever.  
  
Clark eyes grew faint as he remembered Cassandra's warning. Was the Lex he met at this bridge that day the real man, or was the Lex who now hunted him like a common animal the person he was meant to become?  
  
"No." Clark said in a thrust back to himself. "This is not my world or my friend."  
  
In the distance the sirens seemed to be getting closer. He knew they were heading in his direction and would be there in minutes. Looking down at the frozen water, he knew that if he was to get back to his Smallville, then this was the perfect place to start the journey.  
  
Clark folded his hands and leaned forward earnestly, on the rail. "Dear God." He began. "I am not fully aware of what is happening here, but I know you know why this is all happening. You have your hand on my life now as you always have. So I know that whatever happened here was of your will. I thank you for allowing me to experience this great opportunity to see what the world would be if I were never born, and I have to tell you, I don't like it, Lord. I need to get back to my own life again."  
  
Clark opened his eyes for a second hoping that like a blinking of a genie he would be back home. Instead he saw the snow getting heavier and the lights of the police cars in between the buildings getting closer.  
  
"God, hear my prayer." The tears began to roll down his cheek. "I want to go home, God. I want to live again." He doubled over in grief and slid down the rail to the wet ground. "Please God, let me live again."  
  
With a loud scream, he yelled. "God!"  
  
Just then he bolted up and opened his eyes to find himself back in his own warm bed. Adjusting his sight, he saw a man standing in the shadow near the door. After a few seconds the shadow approached, and Clark saw that it was Lex. His favorite cue balled Lex. Clark let out a chuckle of laughter as he realized he was home again and with his friends.  
  
"Lex?" He finally said softly.  
  
Lex Luthor emerged from the dark into the dim night light that shined through the window. Clark again breathed a sigh of relief as he realized this was the man he knew, and not the one he had just escaped.  
  
"I was having a hard time staying asleep, and I could hear you in here tossing and turning, so I thought I would look in on you." Lex whispered sitting at the foot of the bed. "I thought about waking you up, but the way to were swinging your arms and legs, I thought it might be better to stay out of harms way."  
  
"That was probably a good thing." Clark leaned forward and tried to brush the sleep from his eyes. "I don't have a whole lot of nightmares, but that one was a bad one."  
  
"It must have been. You're Soaked with sweat." Lex gestured to the tee shirt he was wearing. "Do you remember any of it?"  
  
"All too well." Clark answered. "I think this one will haunt my next few days for sure."  
  
"Do you want to talk about it?"  
  
Clark could see the sincerity on his friend's face. He thought of how he had trusted the Lex in his dream, only to have him turn on him. He wanted to open up to him now, but was so unsure of himself.  
  
Lex waited while Clark went over the details in his mind. A slight twinge of hurt seemed to set in the corner of his eye as he realized that perhaps Clark did not trust him enough to share his private thoughts.  
  
"I understand." He turned his eyes downwards. "It's too personal."  
  
Lex was shifting his weight to stand when Clark said. "It was horrible, Lex."  
  
Clark pushed himself back and rested on his head board.  
  
Lex sat back down and crossed his legs' Indian style as he prepared to listen.  
  
"I dreamed I woke up in Smallville, only it wasn't the town we live in now." Clark told him. "The meteor shower never hit Earth and for some reason the Kent's never adopted me. No one knew who I was."  
  
"Was that really a bad thing?" Lex asked with a joking grin.  
  
"Everything was different, Lex." The serious look on Clark's face made it clear to him that he did not enjoy the dream in the least. "My parents lost the farm. Chloe and Lana were alone and miserable while Whitney was in jail for accidently killing Pete. Everyone I knew was there, but so unhappy. All I wanted was to get home to my Kansas."  
  
"Let me guess, The Scarecrow, Lion and Tin Man were all there too." Lex tried to lighten the mood.  
  
"It's not funny, Lex." Clark tried to make him see the point. "This was a world where I was never born, and everyone was in some type of trouble. I never realized that as bad as the meteors were, they may have changed everyone's life for the better. For at least the people around me."  
  
"Sound's like you had a real Jimmy Stewart moment." Lex said. "Did you fall asleep watching, 'It's A Wonderful Life'?"  
  
Clark thought about it for a minute. "You know, the does sound like the movie, doesn't it."  
  
"I think you have had a classic Christmas dream, Clark." Lex smiled again.  
  
Clark laughed softly and felt relief for the first time that night. "I thought people only had those dreams on television."  
  
"Just be happy you weren't watching 'A Christmas Carol' before you dozed off."  
  
"If three ghosts had shown up, I would have sent them to your room." Clark kidded. "After all, you're the one with all the money."  
  
"Thanks Clark." Lex took a deep breath over the pain in his side.  
  
The two of them sat silently for a few seconds. Clark thought of how different the Lex in his dream was from the Lex in reality. Yet there was also something very similar at the same time.  
  
"So," Lex began again. "You didn't tell me if I was in your dream."  
  
Clark eyes grew dark.  
  
"What?" Lex saw the strange look. "Was it that bad?"  
  
"I." Clark looked away. "I don't remember if you were there or not." He lied.  
  
"Really." Lex forced a smile. "Here I always thought I was unforgettable."  
  
Clark did not say a word. His only reaction was a polite smile.  
  
"I was there, wasn't I?" Lex said with a very serious tone.  
  
"Please don't ask me about it." Clark looked as if he was about to break down. The betrayal of his friend was set deep on his heart.  
  
"It was only a dream, Clark." Lex assured him. "Whatever I did to you or anyone else in it, was not real. You are my friend and I would never hurt you. I promise."  
  
"I know, Lex." Clark tried to relax. "That guy was not real."  
  
Not knowing what to say next, Lex looked at the window. "I guess it will be morning soon."  
  
"Yeah." Clark agreed.  
  
"I'll get back to my room and let you sleep." Lex began to uncross his legs.  
  
"Are you sleepy?" Clark asked.  
  
Lex looked at him with a puzzle look. "Actually I was going to go read a book or something. My ribs are too sore to try a lay down again."  
  
"Well I'm not sleepy either." Clark told him. "I thought you might want to stay and we can keep each other company."  
  
"Okay." Lex gave him a suspicious smile. "What are we going to do?"  
  
Clark looked around and then picked up his lap top from his night stand. "I have the latest Slasher game in here. We can play for high a score. Looser has to do the other guy's morning chores."  
  
"I don't have morning chores." Lex reminded him.  
  
"That's okay, cause you are going to lose anyway." Clark assured him with a playful grin.  
  
"Give me that." Lex yanked the computer from his hands. "It's time to eat humble pie, Kent."  
  
Clark watched him as he began to play the game. He again thought of the evil Lex and wondered how his mind could ever conceive of the man who sat next to him, as evil. Lex Luthor was a good man, and always would be. Clark was sure of that.  
  
"Lex." He finally spoke again.  
  
"Yeah, what." Lex grunted, while hard at work defeating the computer foes.  
  
"I'm glad we are friends." Clark said with a hint of melancholy in his voice. "Thanks."  
  
Lex raised an eyebrow and looked up at him with one eye over the screen. "Don't distract my game, Kent." He said with one of his signature smirks.  
  
The two friends played video games and talked well pass dawn on Christmas morning. When the sun finally set in the morning sky, the two of them dredged through the snow and began the morning chores. Lex laughed at Clark while he watched him milk the cows. It seems Lex had failed to tell Clark two small things. He was good at playing video games and Luthors never lose.  
  
The End. 


End file.
